Residents of the Naples/Marco Island KOA campground have built a neighborhood devoid of pretense

A.C. SHILTON

7:15 PM, Apr 6, 2013

Ted Mangels, a manager at the Naples/Marco Island KOA, gets ambushed with water balloons while he tries to maneuver his way to the finish line during an event called “Backseat Driver” during the annual KOA Olympics. The object of the event is to complete the course blindfolded, going only by the directions of the rider’s significant other or friend. Mangels and his wife, Anita, have been managing the KOA since 2007. He attributes the specialness of the campground back to its residents. “It’s become one big family since people have been coming here,” Mangels said. “They’re closer to their neighbors here than the ones they have up North.”

Scott McIntyre

Scott McIntyre/Staff
Kathy McClare pauses her walk with her dogs Gigi and Noah to stand for a portrait near her camper at the Naples / Marco Island KOA. McClare has been coming to the KOA for seven years seasonaly, but is now in her first year as a year round resident. "I always look forward to seeing everyone, this is family," said McClare.

Scott McIntyre

Scott McIntyre/Staff
After dinner in their trailer, Howard Rees laughs during the conversation with his wife Brenda Rees, and their friends Karen and George Green. The Rees' started coming to the Naples / Marco Island KOA 13 years ago. At first, it was only a brief trip, since then they have migrated from a camper to a permanent trailer. Like many of the residents, Howard Rees attributes their affinity to the campground back to the people that come there. "It's like a family away from a family," said Rees.

Scott McIntyre

Scott McIntyre/Staff
Following a cookout at the neighbors camper, Diane Hawver brought out her bird, Bobbie to show to her neighbors as well as getting a kiss from the bird.

Scott McIntyre

Scott McIntyre/Staff
Linda Johnston, right, gathers around with other residents to admire Gladys Vincent's four-month-old great grandson Jase Hunke who was visiting with her mother and Vincent's grand daughter Christina Hunke, right of Vincent, from Ontario. "I hope I'm like this when I'm their age," said Hunke about the residents at the campground.

Scott McIntyre

Scott McIntyre/Staff
Judy and Dave Cummens share a kiss on the dance floor at the annual KOA Sweet Heart Dance in February. Residents and vacationers never have a shortage of activities to participate in at the Naples / Marco Island KOA. An activities council meets every month to plan out what each day will hold.

Scott McIntyre

Doug Schmidt almost got away with it. Almost.

On his way back from running an errand, he swung his car just a little too wide. The awful crunch he heard under his front wheel was one of his wife's flowerpots. He hopped out of the car, tried to push the pieces back together and stuck the pot in a plastic bag, figuring he could blame it on a reckless neighbor.

But it wasn't long before he was hung out to dry like laundry on a line in a trailer park.

Here's where Schmidt's plan ran astray: He and his wife spend their winters in the Naples/Marco Island KOA Campground, a place many describe as "the friendliest campground in the world." With trailers that sit just inches from each other and residents who treat each other like family, it's hard to hide anything.

"There must have been five witnesses on the street," Gladys Schmidt, Doug's wife, explains with a smile.

You can tell that she's not actually mad about her ill-fated perennials. She laughs about it for a second and then she moves on, chatting happily about something else. That's because to Gladys, potted plants — like all other inanimate objects — are just stuff. To the residents of the Naples / Marco Island KOA Campground, at 1700 Barefoot Williams Road, stuff is just stuff.

And in a town like this, where some people ship their cars down each winter to save them from the wear and tear of the highway — the "stuff is just stuff" perspective is actually a little unique.

Before you read any further, there's one thing you need to understand about the residents of the Naples / Marco Island KOA. First: This isn't really a trailer park. Well, technically it is; there are trailers and they are parked. But the people who live here are here because they want to be here, not because they have to be here.

"This is a choice, it absolutely is. There are people who come here every year that could be anywhere in Naples," says campground manager Ted Mangels.

Boat, no home

Take the Schmidts, for example. Gladys says that, if she won the lottery, she'd buy a boat and maybe a few other things. She wouldn't, however trade up her slice of paradise: a fifth-wheel trailer parked on a slim sliver of coarse Florida scrub grass.

Most of the trailer homes are between 300-500 square feet, which is, by Naples standards, gnome-sized. So what makes these sardine-can homes so appealing? According to the residents, it's both the simplicity of the lifestyle and the company of the fellow sardines you're packed in with.

"It's all we need," explains Howard Rees as he shows off the trailer he shares with his wife, Brenda. He gestures around the clean and comfortable space, adding, "We've got a living room, a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen. What more do you need?"

"We used to have a big home," Brenda chimes in, "but who needs all that space? It was just so much to clean."

Adds Howard: "Plus, I needed an intercom to keep track of her!"

A little over a decade ago, the Reeses bought a fifth-wheel trailer with the intent of traveling around North America. They never really made it farther than the Naples/Marco Island KOA Campground.

"We had a friend on Marco Island and we thought this would be a good base," says Howard, adding, "We drove in and said, ‘OK, we'll stay for a week.' We liked it so much we wanted to stay longer and we had to beg the front office to let us stay. The next year we booked in advanced and stayed for a month."

Since then, they've opted for a permanent trailer that sits on-site year-round. The pair swears it's the best campground in Florida, maybe even the United States.

Why? "It's the people," says Brenda, adding, "and the management. We have the best people and the best managers who hire the best staff."

And everyone tells more or less the same story. Twenty-nine years ago, Mary Taylor and her husband pulled their Holiday Rambler into the KOA lot. "Back then we were one of the youngest couples, now I'm one of the oldest. When we got here the people were so nice and we had such a good time we ended up staying."

Looking after each other

Three years ago, Taylor lost her husband and her daughter in quick succession. She was devastated. But as fall turned to winter, she packed up her things and headed south anyway. What had been her and her husband's ritual would become her ritual — and she knew being surrounded by the "family" she'd acquired at the KOA campground would prove therapeutic.

"We're like a family. If anyone is sick we all jump in to help. We're all so close together, you feel like relatives, really," says Taylor.

Earlier this year the flu swept through the campground, and Gladys Schmidt was one of the many who caught it. "Someone brought over soup or chili every night. It's like one big family, we really look after one another."

Except that unlike a real family, these people all actually like each other.

On any given day you'll find neighbors cavorting in water aerobics classes, Bible study groups and "ladies luncheons." The monthly schedule of activities, which many residents post prominently in their little homes, offers an exhausting array of fun. The highlight of the year, the campground's Olympics, brings out nearly everyone.

‘Prosit,' with plastic cups

But even outside of organized events, residents just like being together. Around 4 p.m., people start calling out to passers-by that cocktail hour is at their house that night. By evening, groups have gathered, wine in hand, to toast each other and the good life.

Sure, maybe they're raising plastic glasses full of Three-Buck-Chuck when just a few miles away, someone's butler is uncorking a 100-year-old bottle of Bordeaux. These folks, however, would rather be drinking in the warm light spilling from their trailers' windows, than in the cool shade of a big personal fortune.

Ultimately, if the game is to see who can have the most fun before dying, the residents at this campground are winning. In fact, the more senior residents seem to wear their smile and laugh lines as badges of pride.

And that's exactly why Gladys Schmidt didn't berate her husband for his clumsiness with the flowerpot. After all, the pot she could replace with a quick trip to Wal-Mart.

But the story of her husband trying to pass it off? Now that was priceless.